# Science's Last Exam benchmark tests AI agents on end-to-end research tasks

> Original title: Can AI agents do scientific research on their own?

- Source: Elvis Saravia
- Published: 2026-11-05T17:19:02.000Z
- Bad Influence: https://badinfluence.news/items/a5k6olvz7t2zigkpxq63uxjx3
- Original: https://x.com/omarsar0/status/2118392657651057140

## Summary

Science's Last Exam is a new benchmark built from 113 real research tasks across nine scientific fields, written and reviewed by researchers at more than 30 institutions. On the initial leaderboard, the strongest configuration, Claude Opus 5 in Claude Code, scores 37.5 out of 100, while every model scores 0 on the end-to-end research track.

## Post

Can AI agents do scientific research on their own?

Science's Last Exam is a new benchmark measure this. It's built from real research tasks across nine scientific fields.

It tests whether an agent can form hypotheses, plan protocols, run scientific code and software, and read what happens in experiment videos. Researchers from more than 30 institutions wrote and reviewed the tasks.

On the initial leaderboard, the strongest agent configuration (Claude Opus 5 in Claude Code) reaches a composite score of 37.5 out of 100. On the end-to-end research track, every model scores 0.

## Quoted post @aitonomyfound

> I’m incredibly proud to share what we’ve been building at the AItonomy Foundation: Science’s Last Exam (SLE). 🧪✨
> 
> Can AI do science? Instead of Q&A, we give agents actual research goals and real-world tools (lab data, software), then grade them against hidden expert checks.
> 
> Deeply grateful to the brilliant minds at 34 institutions (Harvard, MIT, Stanford, etc.) who helped craft 113 tasks across 9 disciplines. ❤️
> 
> The results? Science is hard. Of 8 frontier models, the best scored 37.5/100. On true end-to-end research? All scored 0. We have an exciting journey ahead! 🚀
>  (Claude Opus 5.5 & GPT-6 Astra coming soon—just clearing bio safeguards).
> 
> Everything opens Nov 6. 🗓️ 
> 🌐 https://sciences-last-exam.org
> 💻 https://github.com/Gen-Verse/Science-Last-Exam
> 🤗 https://huggingface.co/datasets/Gen-Verse/Science-Last-Exam
> 
> Thread below on how the exam works and where models break. 👇 (1/14)
> #AGI #AIforScience #AIAgents #SciencesLastExam #OpenAI #Anthropic

https://x.com/aitonomyfound/status/2118372265842610618